Low cost SCADA for a laboratory-scale bioreactor

This work presents the development of a Supervisory, Control And Data Adquisition (SCADA) using open hardware and free software, for an NBS BioFlo III bioreactor system used in a laboratory inside Universidad Nacional de Quilmes. Design and development of the SCADA BioFlo III system it´s based in a web server connected with the fermenter. The server register every process variable in specific databases, which are available from a graphical user interface (GUI) programmed entirely in web language. Such GUI it´s accessible from any device with internet access and the corresponding University VPN certificates, which make this SCADA system multi-platform in every aspect. To interact physically with the reactor, an Arduino platform is used. It communicates with the server (under an specific protocol) through a communication interface programmed in Phyton. The GUI interacts directly with the database, which is also accessed by the same communication algorithm.